BOOK REVIEW: OVERKILL

On a beautiful California May morning in 1998 I was working on drug
law reform material while my parrot chased the cursor from atop my
computer monitor. Suddenly, she let out a squawk as we both noticed
an odd movement to our left. I looked out my office window and saw a
group of military-clad men sprinting down the alley. My first
thought, even though I had read thousands of drug raid horror
stories, was, "Wow, wonder where they're going?!" Then, it sunk in.
They were coming to raid my boyfriend's medical marijuana garden. For
the next few minutes I could only utter, "Shit, Holy Shit!" as I ran
to place my pet in the safety of her cage.

I have never fully recovered from what occurred during the following
12 hours but I knew that the experience could have been much worse.
The Cato Institute's recently published study, Overkill: The Rise of
Paramilitary Police Raids in America, verifies this many times over.

After a year of research, the author, Radley Balko, found the rising
use of and number of mistakes by SWAT teams troubling and full of
heartbreak. I found myself in tears as I forced my way through the
numerous examples contained in the appendix. I also experienced
several flashbacks to that day in May 1998 as I read through the
superbly organized and detailed orientated report.

The study begins with a history of how and why it has become
seemingly acceptable to use military tactics to execute search
warrants on American citizens. This is followed by a discussion
about the legal issues of such tactics. The necessity and problematic
dependence on informants appears next. Mr. Balko concludes with
suggestions on how to correct the reported problems.

An interactive map, Botched Paramilitary Police Raids: An Epidemic of
"Isolated Incidents", accompanies the study and is available at
http://www.cato.org/raidmap/. This fantastic utility categorizes
botched SWAT raids, allows users to isolate the incidents by type and
provides a search function which produces printable descriptions of
the raids plotted on the map.

Please show your support by purchasing the very reasonably-priced
hard copy from the Cato Bookstore. A free PDF version is also
available online. Both options are available at
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476.

The author, Radley Balko is a Cato policy analyst specializing in
civil liberties issues and is the author of the Cato study, "Back
Door to Prohibition: The New War on Social Drinking." Additional
information about Mr. Balko and the Cato Institute is available at
http://www.cato.org/